Terry Marotta: Explaining Redcoats to a child

Monday

Jun 29, 2009 at 12:01 AMJun 29, 2009 at 6:11 AM

The 5-year-old and I sat on the wide stone step in front of his house as he worked to transform an old wooden wagon into a 25th-century spacecraft. It was early afternoon, and we had nothing to do but monitor the peaceful crib sounds of his baby brother napping just inside.

Terry Marotta

The 5-year-old and I sat on the wide stone step in front of his house as he worked to transform an old wooden wagon into a 25th-century spacecraft. It was early afternoon, and we had nothing to do but monitor the peaceful crib sounds of his baby brother napping just inside.

“We beat the Redcoats,” the child suddenly said, not even looking up from the improvised ramps of his emerging spaceship.

I did my best to follow this sudden detour into U.S. history. “We did beat them, and then they had to leave!”

“Why?”

“Well they were from England and for years they’d been bossing us around, making us pay all this money in taxes without letting us have a say in how it would be spent. We tried to get them to just let us have our own country, but they wouldn’t, so there was this long awful war --”

“With guns!” he cried joyously.

“With guns and suffering,” I said in the way of mothers the world over. “But finally they left and we could make our own country.”

“How do you make a country?”

“Oh, first I guess you decide what your rules are. Like one rule is they can’t put you in jail for saying what you think. Another is they can’t jail you without telling you why and --“

But I got no further. “JAIL?” he interrupted. It was almost as good as guns. “Do YOU know any jail people?”

“Sure, but let’s call them people who have been in jail instead of jail people.”

“Do you go see the jail people? Is it scary?

“I do and no. It’s sad more than scary.”

“Why sad?”

“Because they can’t leave. Because you’re not allowed even to hug them. …”

Holding a small rock that he was trying to affix to his work-in-progress of a spaceship, he looked quickly over at me.

“You can put Redcoats in jail whenever you like. Pirates, too.”

“No, not Redcoats. No pirates.”

“Why not?”

“Because we made these rules and now we have obey them! Also, things have changed a lot over the centuries. In the old days, if someone poked your eye out, you could go poke his eye out, but we don’t do that anymore. We’ve figured out a few things and now life is better for everyone. “

“What things?”

“Well there was this Catholic priest, Father Teilhard de Chardin, who was also the kind of scientist specializing in fossils and dinosaur times, and he once said something that I really like and believe. He said the whole history of the universe is the history of matter evolving toward consciousness.”

“What does that mean, matters revolving toward consciences?”

“It means we’re learning. It means that a long time ago the whole world was like this rock of yours, just sitting there. But then very gradually everything sort of woke up and turned into all this!” I said, gesturing at the early summer life around us.

He looked around. Then he smiled. He got it exactly.

“We woke up, and built our spaceships and flew AWAY!” he crowed waving his arms, while in the sweet tall grasses beyond the path, the bees practiced four-part harmony and the wildflowers nodded along in time.

Terry, who also writes books and gives short inspirational talks, welcomes all comments either at terrymarotta@verizon.net or c/o Ravenscroft Press, P.O. Box 270, Winchester, MA 01890.

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